Pedagogical Studies of Relativistic Hamiltonians

Abstract

Relativistic Hamiltonians are defined as the sum of relativistic one-body kinetic energies, two- and many-body interactions and their boost corrections. We review the calculation of the boost correction of the two-body interaction from commutation relations of the Poincare group and show that its important terms can be easily understood from classical relativistic mechanics. The boost corrections for scalar- and vector- meson-exchange interactions, obtained from relativistic field theory, are shown to be in agreement with the results of the classical calculation. These boost corrections are also shown to be necessary to reproduce the known results of relativistic mean-field theories. We conclude with comments on the relativistic boost operator for the wave function of a nucleus. Several of the results presented in this pedagogical article are known. We hope that a better understanding of relativistic Hamiltonians and their relation to relativistic field theory is obtained by putting them together with a few new relations.